Prompt Action
A teleprompter can be a lifesaver on a shoot.
We’ve all been there. A CEO wants to film a piece to camera to their colleagues but either hasn’t written a script or hasn’t read what has been written for them.
Or, we have a complicated, wordy script full of jargon or detail which needs to be accurate and the presenter is pacing around trying to commit it to memory. Teleprompters are worth their weight in gold in these circumstances but traditionally they’ve been clunky collections of expensive kit operated by skilled crewmembers.
Wouldn’t it be a great idea to have some type of prompting equipment which I could have in the car, ready for events like these? This eqipment needed to be fast to deploy, simple to use but above all be beneficial to my customers.
It did turn out to be a good idea. It’s a frequently used piece of kit, popular with my customers. Even people with no presenting experience are prompting pros within a few sentences!
Tablet Teleprompting
There are many products on the internet which turn ‘phones and tablets into ‘Autocue’ style teleprompting devices. In particular, I liked the look of the mirror hardware from DataVideo. The build quality looked good which is important on location and the design of the device mount looked innovative.
I found various prompting apps offering basic editing, scrolling and reversible display so it could be used with a mirror. Some even boasted they had voice recognition to automatically scroll! A great feature if you’re multitasking! I tried a number of these apps, however I was never entirely happy. Everything I used turned out to be a bit of a compromise.
The hardware available for tablets and ‘phones is light enough to be hand held. However, the small screens on the devices for which they are intended are hard to read from beyond about 2m. The size of the mirror is inevitably small so the size of font available to display enough words to make reading easy has to be small.
Remote control of scrolling is sometimes possible via a network or Bluetooth, neither of which is very reliable. Editing of the script involves removing the tablet or ‘phone. This upsets the workflow and isn’t very practical.
Upsizing …..
I wanted a more practical sized teleprompter, therefore I chose to sacrifice the ability to use it hand held. Fortunately, the largest DataVideo has to offer is still nice and compact but big enough for easy reading at a distance. The TP-650 is what I decided upon and can accomodate DSLR’s aswell as larger ENG cameras.
Increasing the size of the mirror had further advantages too. I didn’t have to use a tablet with minimal processing power and limited remote control. I could use a laptop to run more sophisticated software and output to a high quality monitor. As a result, the larger mirror makes it easy to read text up to about 5m. I had found a cost effective, no compromise equivalent to a traditional ‘Autocue’
It can also be used in a similar way to the ingenious Vox Box Pro.
This clever device is virtually essential for interviews where the contributor talks straight down the lens. The interviewer looks into a mirror to one side of the camera. A piece of optical glass in front of the lens reflects the image of the interviewer. The Interviewee has a real face to engage with and therefore very quickly forgets the camera is there.
When I use my teleprompter this way, I have a webcam camera facing the interviewer and project the image to the teleprompter. A simple and fast way to give the contributor a face to talk to. The beauty of this is that I can change between teleprompter and eye direct with the click of the mouse. Two devices in one!
On Location
Whether I’m using it as a teleprompter or eyeline device it will run all day on batteries. I have modified it to use rails and an adjustable slide mount. This allows it to fit onto any tripod with most camera and lens combinations. However, a lot of the time I use it mounted on top of a lighting stand. Consequently it doesn’t hinder the setting up of a shot whilst still being handy when needed. It hardly takes up any extra space so as a result doesn’t pose any additional hazard. It’s a truly versatile and practical piece of kit which helps make anyone in front of the camera look like a seasoned pro.
Get in touch if you’d like more information. Email me for current rates.